Exclusive Interview: Chad Cisneros of Tritonal

DJ groups Tritonal and Cash Cash are playing at the Soho in Santa Barbara on September 30th. In anticipation for this concert, I interviewed Chad Cisneros of the duo Tritonal.

How do you feel about the Untouchable Tour with Cash Cash coming up?
It’s the biggest tour of our careers, a three month tour on a bus. I’m ramping up for it! There’s going to be visual effects, new music, it’s going to be great.

Your song, Gamma Gamma, was just released — how do you feel about it? Is there a 3rd studio album on the way? What can we expect in 2016?
Gamma Gamma is a banger! This September we have a record with Chainsmokers — there’s a sneak peak on SoundCloud. In October we have a club single coming out. We have a big album coming out that we will be promoting next year, and in January we will release a new single!

Who do you guys looks up to or get inspiration from?
We like rock pop, Bruno Mars, Coldplay, Jon Hopkins and his Nils Frahm remix. We like similar beautiful, terrestrial stuff.

Your sound changed from trance to progressive house. How does this seem to be going? Is this your official sound now, or will you keep switching it up?
We try to take new stuff like Major Lazor, Rehab, W&W, and be Tritonal. We left trance for electronic house, like on “Now or Never”, “Colors”, and “Anchor”. We had three of five on Billboard dance records. This is a big achievement.

What’s your typical day now? You just had a baby girl, and are back on tour, where do you find time to make music?
We have studios in LA and Austin, TX. We are at the studio in Austin full time with a strict schedule from 9-4 PM, but we also do online work. It’s a long process, recording, managing, backing, and publishing. Coming up we have the Asian tour and the Untouchable tour.

What is it like performing at all of these festivals? Do the crowds’ reactions and hype greatly influence your performance and sounds? How do you feel?
At festivals we play harder; it’s exhausting but we maintain our energy levels. When [we are] performing and the crowd sings back our songs, it feels great and means so much.

What are you listening to lately?
On Spotify, I’m listening to Alesso’s new album, Nils Frahms’ solo album, Chemical Brothers — which is an awesome album, I was a fan back in the day, and Jon Hopkins’s Immunity album.

You both grew up in families with musical backgrounds; did you guys always have the support back home? Becoming a DJ artist, or being involved in the music industry in general, is tough and sometimes a leap of faith.
They were not always supportive. They believed that the industry was all about partying. My parents were conservative. They thought this was an irresponsible decision and thought I wasn’t facing reality because it wasn’t a business or like a real job. But with our work ethic, we have produced 200 records and have our own record label.

What do you do in your spare time on tour?
On tour, we maintain ourselves. We rest, eat, go to the gym, visit tourist sites in whichever city we are in, and talk to our families. We need to do the boring stuff like sleep because we need to give our energy on stage.

If you weren’t a DJ what would you be doing?
I would be a professor of Audio Engineering; I have a degree at the University of Texas. I love youth learning and would love to teach for a day.

What is your favorite thing about making music?
The gratitude of making music — it’s so rewarding to write something awesome.

You guys are joining the Glow Stick 5K, which is a good cause. How did that happen?
We want to promote healthy living. I run 5-10 miles, 5 days a week. This is one way we can raise awareness, give back, and help others. On our Asia tour, in every city, we will be filming a time-lapse.

If there was something you could tell students to persuade them to start running what would that be?
It’s a great way to have fun, and exercise. We want everyone to get a good run in, get air, turn off their computers, and do something good for yourselves.

Speaking of students, do you guys like to perform on campus?
Playing at colleges is fun, amped, and they are always ready to rage!